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More horrific allegations are levied against Park City School District
The Salt Lake Tribune is reporting on a lawsuit brought against the Park City School District by the parents of a current second grader. The parents allege that when their child was in Kindergarten, he went into the principal’s office, was instructed to pull down his pants, and the principal touched his penis. According to the allegation, when the parents reported this to four people at the school, none of them reported this to authorities. This is one of the cases of unreported child abuse cases being investigated by the Summit County Attorney, Margret Olson.
Yet it gets worse; the lawsuit alleges that the boy has dyslexia and dysgraphia, and after the parents reported the issue, his special education services were taken away. It further alleges that due to this, the child now has difficulty spelling his name and writing ABCs.
Yet it gets worse; the lawsuit alleges that due to their child’s speech difficulties, he now gets bullied. According to the court filing, “He was punched so hard he lost sight for four days, ending up in Primary Children’s Hospital. He was kicked, choked, hit on the head, pinned to the ground, and threatened with a knife.”
Yet it gets worse; the parents allege that the school never told them about the bullying and that they found out about it from their son. The parents also allege that when they brought it up to school administrators, they were brushed off.
Yet it gets worse; according to the lawsuit, the school’s answer to these issues was that the child should transfer to a different school.
Yet it gets worse; no one from the school district will comment.
I would encourage you to read the entire article by Courtney Tanner. It’s the most damning thing I have read about Park City schools.
Here are some of my thoughts on this matter:
- I feel for this family (and the others too), who suffer through these events. Their only recourse to affect change is to sue the Park City School District, Dr. Gildea, the School Board, the Principal, and staff members. It shouldn’t have to be like that.
- Why is no one at the school district on administrative leave until these allegations are sorted out?
- Can the County Attorney really settle with the school district on unreported child abuse cases after the Salt Lake Tribune article?
- The school district’s lack of comment on this is unbelievable. Here is the problem now. The article states that the allegation about touching the boy’s penis was made against a male principal who is still listed as head of their school. That’s two people — and not hard to figure out. If the allegations are false, the school should be talking about this to support their two principals. If the allegations are true, the school should be talking about this to support the innocent man. However, as the public, we are now left gossiping, wondering, hoping, and making up our own narratives. It’s not fair to at least one of these principals.
- Speaking of that, should you worry about sending your kid to school next year? Should I?
- Outside of the child abuse, the lesson that the school district allegedly seems to be teaching us is, don’t speak up, or you’ll be sorry. Sounds more like the Godfather than Head of the Class.
- If you have a special needs child, are YOU now worried whether something will happen and your child’s services will be removed? This allegation seems to be a recurring pattern in our district.
- How many millions of dollars are we as taxpayers going to have to pay for this mess?
- I hope this child gets the help he needs to get back on track.
This whole thing makes me sick. I’ve followed Park City Schools for a long time. There have been issues in the past. They didn’t approach the 2015 bond correctly. They retaliated against a nurse related to her standing up for the parents of type 1 diabetes children. They don’t communicate at all. They appear to have deserted our underserved kids. There is a bullying problem.
However, this is a new low. If even half of these allegations are true, we need to clean house at the top of our district.
Update:
Since writing this article, I read the court filing the Tribune’s article is based on. I have been contacted by parents worried about the allegations of sexual abuse cited in the Tribune article. Parents should know that this lawsuit isn’t actually about those charges. It sounds like either they have been investigated or are being investigated. It’s far more about bullying that has allegedly been allowed to get out of control. It’s about allegedly not protecting students. It’s about failure to report child abuse. It’s about alleged retaliation. It’s about allegedly denying civil rights. The lawsuit is about not helping a child in need.
That said, the incidents the lawsuit alleges are horrific, whether a child’s penis was touched or not.
Note: I am not going to publish the court documents, out of respect for the privacy of those involved. They are publicly available if you wish to find them.
Parkrag
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18 Comments
link to court documents?
WOW, I hope this SLC Tribune article lights some fires. This is so terrible.
I have read them, but I’m not going to publish them. The parents seemed to indicate in the Tribune article that they want privacy. The lawsuit also names bullies the child has encountered. The documents are publicly available, though, if someone wants to find them.
Having read through it, though, there are the allegations that a child was touched on his penis in 2019. Those appear to be being investigated. However, that’s not really the subject of the lawsuit. The lawsuit is about failure to report child abuse, the school allowing bullying to continue, the injuries caused by unchecked bullying, and disabilities rights being violated. It goes back to systemic failures.
In many ways, trust me, as I read through it, the other things that allegedly heppened to this child are as equally bad as the alleged touching. It’s sickening.
Why does shit like this keep happening? Why does this population of Park City keep allowing it to happen without consequences?
You are on the wrong side here. Nobody can say anything because of a law suit. There is a reason the county dropped it. Maybe that’s why the Tribune was contacted, because there isn’t a case.
Even if the touching never happened (which is what seems likely given the county attorney not prosecuting) the retaliation is arguably more serious (and would fit with the general behavior of the district).
I completely agree. From a public perspective, the lawsuit would have been “better” if it didn’t reference the touching. So many people have done their own research to figure out which two Principals it could be. It is likely it was neither, but imagine you are one of those two persons.
That said, the retaliation is worrying. The bullying worries me. The principal who was running the school when these things allegedly happened could have a lot to answer for. We shall see what comes of the lawsuit.
Regardless, the school district needs to communicate on this topic. At some point we have to be honest. Will we never hear from the school district again because there are so many lawsuits? That tells us something in and of itself.
The county didn’t drop anything. A settlement is to be reached for the SEVEN people that failed to report. SEVEN.
They knew they were to report it and they didn’t. A few of these people even made calls to the superintendent to ask what to do. Top down management told them NOT to report. THAT is a problem! If you did nothing wrong, there’s nothing to hide, right?
If the parent lied about something as serious as accusing a principal of sexual assault, don’t you think the rest of the allegations might also be made up? These accusations are about 5 year olds in our community. Why are you so quick to think the worst of our children?
There are so many things that are troubling here.
As a parent and an educator in the district, it is horrifying to think that the allegations in this case are true. I know that I will be paying close attention to the findings of the court.
As a parent of a child who has been a victim of sexual assault, I implore all parents to please be an advocate for your child. One of the most troubling things to me as I read the article in the Tribune, was that DCFS and the police were not notified until the child was in second grade and his doctor notified them. If your child lets you know that they have been abused, please advocate for them. Please call the police. The parents call should not have been to the school when their child disclosed the abuse, the call should have been to the police, DCFS, or both.
I will also ask our community to remember that there are teachers, administrators, support staff, etc in the schools – the majority of us – that are not involved in these cases, and busy work hard to educate your children and to keep them safe.
Even if 50% or 20% of the lawsuit’s allegations are true, PCSD is a problem. The district is responsible to provide a safe evironment for our kids to learn in. Parents, wake up and get to know your child’s experience at school.
Not reporting any of these incidents is the problem.
If it’s not documented, it never happened. Why are they sweeping everything under the rug?
It seems the parents tried and got fed up and PCSD not saying anything says it all.
Our kids deserve better.
Honest Abe, nothing is going to be done about it except for checking in that staff are trained. The Summit county attorney doesn’t seem very worried. Also, the last article mentioned that the superintendent didn’t tell anyone not to report it to authorities. She’s in the clear I guess.
It’s all very disturbing. This is a helluva teflon group of people without accountability for anything.
I just don’t understand how Gildea got her contract renewed. There doesn’t seem to be any doubt that she was directly informed of abuse allegations *and that those allegations had not yet been properly reported.* At that moment it became incumbent on her, as a mandated reporter, to file a report and, as an administrator, to ensure that her employees did the same.
Even setting aside everything else, (including whether the abuse allegations have any merit) the way she f*cked this up should have spelled the end of her tenure with the District.
She, and the board, consider themselves completely untouchable at this point. And in their shoes, I would too. They have lied, screwed up, and then lied about screwing up, over and over. The voters haven’t shown that they care, unfortunately.
It is sad that the district office’s lack of ability to handle these situations correctly has led to unfortunate events to happen in our district to our students, families, and faculty – and for these negative events to overshadow the hard, amazing, selfless work by so many if our teachers, and the hard work and grit of our students through these last few years. Amazing things are happening in our classrooms, and the DO is responsible for casting a dark cloud over that.
If people aren’t doing their job in our schools – they are the minority and the district has a responsibility to all of us up deal with those situations. Do the hard work, make the hard decisions, and let the community feel safe within our school communities. The DO isn’t even in the schools, they are in their offices, yet they are the face of our district to so many in the community.
So much to be angry about with all of this.
Der Fisch stinkt vom Kopf.
My blood is still boiling… my heart is still broken. When I was a teacher and my special needs son’s interdistrict transfer was terminated without warning or due process.- I was morally shaken.
I cannot speak anymore about that situation legally and he was reinstated because, obviously, he is protected under IDEA, but so many other things occurred.
I loved working for Park city school district, but not with the way things are being ran. They let me down and they let my children down and I could not serve them any longer..
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